041 Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast

Transcript   Major concerns as ESMA appears to be rating rating agencies on their ability to hold off from re-rating! DB1 becomes the first major tech casualty of the COVID-19 era, impacting clients and markets across Europe for four hours.   Aquis are on the cusp of profitability while the Warsaw Stock Exchange completes its first international virtual roadshow. My name is Patrick L. Young. Welcome to the bourse business Weekly digest. It's the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast issue 41.   So Passover began last week with the usual wine glasses which threatened to drown Zoom and similar networks, a virtual Seder giveaway to the virtual Easter. Nestle were already aggressively cutting chocolate egg prices by 50% in Malta even before we reached Good Friday. Thus there's probably more of me offering my pith this week compared to the usual dimensions of PLY, even if the Podcast itself may be slightly shorter thanks to the Easter / Passover week. It has been a very busy week nonetheless. Amongst other things, I had the joy of giving a webinar alongside the Aldermanic Sheriff of the City of London Professor Michael Mainelli. You can catch the discussion: “Michael Mainelli in conversation with Patrick L Young” on YouTube (and in the links below this Podcast on Exchange Invest.com).    Meanwhile, at the nexus of bank technology, vending and alcoholism, many with unproductive lives will be gutted, that SIBOS has been cancelled for 2020. Given that this is one of the few reasons why SWIFT clings to any vestige of relevance, another piece of their raison d'etre dies.   A technical glitch halted trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange for four hours taking with it a number of client markets: Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sofia, Malta, as well as Vienna, Prague and Budapest...were all affected by the systems outage due to their using the Xetra T7 system.    Sooner or later somebody was going to fall over. DB1 clearly have achieved the first mover advantage in the egg on face repo nobody wants to endure. What a pity as parish uptime has been stunning overall during the crisis, and indeed leading the Parrish uptime has been Nasdaq.   NASDAQ is well prepared to withstand the Coronavirus pandemic. Adena Friedman was once again trumpeting this week, ably abetted by various of her cohorts. Chief economist, Phil Macintosh, Bjorn Sibbern, and others were very eager to discuss the possibilities for how markets were being kept open and indeed running thanks to not just Nasdaq technology, but the great work of many parishioners throughout the parish and indeed, various other technology systems. Deutsche Boerse excepted.    “The Coronavirus crisis will speed the end of shareholder primacy” argued Byron, Loflin NASDAQ's Global Head of board engagement. Stakeholders are important and I think good firms have long tried to achieve a balance between pure capital and other relatively soft factors. This I think we can resonate with the core thesis which has been outlined by Byron Loflin in this Fast Company article. However, doubt recollects one magnificent Goldie Hawn appearance on “Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,” where she noted “and the meek shall inherit the earth. Trouble is the rich keep contesting the will.”   Over at the EU, ESMA, the European securities and financial market watchdog, seem to be sticking their nose into other people's business. They were offering all manner of investment advice the other week: ‘follow index trackers’ which I have to say is as far as I ca...